There’s a reason why Amazon is eating everyone’s supper and it can be boiled down to two words: customer satisfaction.
The term has actually been quantified by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which breaks it down into five criteria (expectations, quality, value, complaints and loyalty), and queries 70,000 consumers each year about their experiences with over 330 companies, based on those factors.
Sitting atop ACSI’s year-end hit parade once again is Amazon, tying with Nordstrom and Chick-fil-A as the nation’s most customer-centric companies by scoring a chart-topping 86 on a scale of 0-100.
Running close behind within the tech, retail and appliance industries are Apple computers and Costco, which tied at 84.
GE and LG appliances also tied, at 82, while Electrolux, Lowe’s, Netflix, Newegg and Samsung appliances came in at 81.
Apple and Samsung both rated an 80 for their smartphones, tying Sam’s Club and Target in retail and Whirlpool in majaps, which edged out Bosch at 79.
Among other big industry names, Best Buy maintained last year’s score of 77 (tying with GameStop) despite its own internal assessments that pointed to improvements in customer service.
Further down the list, LG smartphones and Lenovo rated a 74, while most mobile carriers and PC makers occupied the 69 to 73 range.
ACSI purgatory was reserved for the cable and ISP companies, with Time Warner bottoming out at 51.
Viewed by industry, online retail showed the most improvement year over year, rising 5.1 percent to score an 82, although majaps, which showed a more modest 1.3 percent gain, to 81, has “consistently been one of the higher-scoring industries with products that are reliable and generally of high quality, according to customers,” ACSI said.
Nonetheless, 59 percent of companies tracked for more than a year showed a decline in customer satisfaction, leading ACSI chairman/founder Claes Fornell to conclude: “By and large, the overall customer experience for goods and services purchased and consumed in the United States is getting worse.
“There are exceptions,” he noted, “but the overall trend of deteriorating customer satisfaction encompasses nearly every industry and is holding consumer spending in check, forcing retailers into steeper or more extended discounts.”
Here’s the complete pan-industry list of companies and their 2015 ACSI scores:
